- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
About this book
How cat mania exploded in the early twentieth century, transforming cats from pests into beloved pets.
In 1900, Britain and America were in the grip of a cat craze. An animal that had for centuries been seen as a household servant or urban nuisance had now become an object of pride and deep affection. From presidential and royal families who imported exotic breeds to working-class men competing for cash prizes for the fattest tabby, people became enthralled to the once-humble cat. Multiple industries sprang up to feed this new obsession, selling everything from veterinary services to leather bootees via dedicated cat magazines. Cats themselves were now traded for increasingly large sums of money, bolstered by elaborate pedigrees that claimed noble ancestry and promised aesthetic distinction.
In Catland, Kathryn Hughes chronicles the cat craze of the early twentieth century through the life and career of Louis Wain. Wain's anthropomorphic drawings of cats in top hats falling in love, sipping champagne, golfing, driving cars, and piloting planes are some of the most instantly recognizable images from the era. His round-faced fluffy characters established the prototype for the modern cat, which cat "fanciers" were busily trying to achieve using their newfound knowledge of the latest scientific breeding techniques. Despite being a household name, Wain endured multiple bankruptcies and mental breakdowns, spending his last fifteen years in an asylum, drawing abstract and multicolored felines. But it was his ubiquitous anthropomorphic cats that helped usher the formerly reviled creatures into homes across Europe.
Beautifully illustrated and based on new archival findings about Wain's life, the wider cat fancy, and the media frenzy it created, Catland chronicles the fascinating history of how the modern cat emerged.
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Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Also by Kathryn Hughes
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Dedication
- Contents
- 1 Welcome to Catland
- 2 Early Terrors
- 3 The Beforetimes
- 4 Maternal Material
- 5 Thinking with Cats
- 6 It Wasn’t Milk
- 7 Show Time
- 8 About Town
- 9 Ca-Doe-Mee
- 10 Court in the Act
- 11 Owls and Pussycats: Queer Lives in Catland
- 12 Odd Fish
- 13 Cats for Pleasure and Profit
- 14 Hitched
- 15 Caterwauling
- 16 Enter Peter
- 17 ‘She Smells of Fish’
- 18 Cat Man
- 19 Roundheads and Cavaliers
- 20 Cat Kin
- 21 The End of Everything
- 22 Catland-on-Sea
- 23 Pussies Galore
- 24 A Chat with Mr Louis Wain
- 25 ‘Yellow Peril’
- 26 A Man Perpetually Laughing
- 27 A Cat May Look at a Princess
- 28 Metaphysics and Madness
- 29 Two Tales
- 30 Crossed Wires
- 31 Cat Burglar
- 32 Cat Man in the New World
- Plate Sections
- 33 Sisters Under the Cat Skin
- 34 Speed Demon
- 35 Cat Catcher
- 36 Home Front in Catland
- 37 Cats Under Canvas
- 38 Catland at the Kinema
- 39 Felix Turns the Tide
- 40 The Fire of the Mind Agitates the Atmosphere
- 41 Scaredy-Cats
- 42 A Little Man Drawing Cats
- 43 Hardy’s Heart
- 44 Bedlam
- 45 The Cat’s Miaow
- 46 Months in the Country
- 47 Stuffed Cats
- 48 Wallpaper
- 49 The Myth of the Disintegrating Cat
- 50 On Margate Sands
- Sources and Resources
- Illustration Credits
- Acknowledgements
- Index